freerk's blog

BreadLab goes epic

The macaron is a puzzling piece of confectionery. It can either be a good day for it or not. Some days, macarons are just in the air, those egg whites all ready to be whipped to the ceiling and back. But not any dull old day will do for the dainty lady to make her appearance.
She prefers a dry and sunny day over humid dampness, and, however unfair it seems at times, that is her prerogative. She'll only get off her feet and grant you a glance at how her skirt falls perfect over her calves when she is ready and feels like it.

Shaken Baking Confidence

There was some strong verbal abuse to be heard in the BreadLab kitchen this morning. The air trembled with ancient Dutch strong language when that elusive and downright arrogant confectionery that calls itself "French Macaroon" failed in the oven... yet again!

Rediscovering Waldkorn bread this week. I can only take credit for mixing it all up and shaping it as tight as I managed this time around; I'm using a "soezie mix". I'm trying to break down what is in there to make it THAT dark a loaf. Any help in deconstructing is appreciated. And no, alas, the flour formula is not on the bag... Crumb pics to come when the loaf has cooled down enough (after seriously ripping a beautiful bread to pieces I have found the patience to properly cool at last)

Today I passed my windowpane test with flying colors.

The strawberry season around here starts early this year. We had a nice spell of dry sunny spring weather. That is all any decent strawberry asks for to taste as delicious as they do in these perfect circumstances.

I think my Easter Doves came out a bit...... nazi germany eagle :-/

What do you think;

Would putting a green twig in their beak bring it back to the coming festivities?

Thanks txfarmer for the insightful pics!

recipe and shaping pics by txfarmer can be found here

I haven't been on TFL for some time, but HAVE been baking. Take a look at my "baking gallery"

For New Year's Eve I decided to share this wonderful traditional Dutch cookie-recipe.

Up to this day people in the northern and eastern regions of The Netherlands eat this waferthin cookie for NewYear's Eve.

They come in two varieties: flat and rolled up.

The flat ones you eat the 31st of December, the rolled up ones you can eat starting the 1st of January.

(scroll down for update and pictures!!!)

My mother passed away long before her time, now almost 15 years ago.

She left behind a bread recipe that still goes around by her name; "Renny-bread" Even distant cousins seem to know the recipe; last summer I visited one of them here in Amsterdam, after she had been really helping me out for my wedding (she has THE most wonderful flowershop here in Amsterdam). To thank her I brought her a "Renny-bread", thinking she would see and eat it for the first time in her life...

Glezer versus Reinhart

After getting Reinhart's "Bread Baker's Apprentice" for X-mas this year (thank you sis!) I baked my first bread "from the heart" and I loved it!!! So far I've been a "follower" of the Maggie Glezer-way of going about business:

I've been meticulously studying formulas and weighing ingredients to the milligram, producing very nice loafs as a result. But after baking with my head so much, it is time to start baking with my heart!

My second batch of pandoros came out very nice as well! I used Glezer's recipe. It was amazing how difficult it was to find cocoa-butter in this town. Especially when you know that Amsterdam is the #1 harbour for shipping the stuff around the world... In certain weather conditions we can smell the coacoa from our balcony, but for buying the cocoa-butter I ended up going out of town to a very old fashioned drugstore in a nearby city. The oddities of globalization, I guess... Anyway. here it is: my second batch of pandoros!

On X-mas we'll be having a cheese-thingie going on with friends, so I made my first 4 pounder today. It looks quite spectacular I think:

This dough is quite soft, and I forgot to fold it 3x early on in the ferment, so i did one fold and at the end of the 3 hour ferment and hoped for the best. It came out flatter than I wanted, but it did get a substantial oven spring, so I'm  happy.